The Search For Leopold Stotch
by The Millionaire Dog
Summary: After some serious thinking, Michael decides what went wrong with the people from Stamford and begins the search for an employee better suited to his family. Predictably, it ends in a hostage situation.


I don't have any explanation for any of this. I hope you like it.

**The Search For Leopold Stotch**

Michael: Why did so many of the Stamford people fail? Easy. Personality conflict. At Scranton we are a very tight unit and... the personalities just didn't work together. If they only would have sent me someone I could have used... Like Butters. What I couldn't do with my very own Butters.

---

Michael walked with purpose towards his secretary's desk, which was never a good sign. "Pamda Bear, I need you to do that thing you do when we need new people," he explained.

"Michael, I don't think Jan wants you to hire anyone new right now," Pam argued.

"I can handle Jan," Michael assured her smugly.

"But, aren't you supposed to explain to the board how you managed to lose almost everyone from Stamford?" Pam pointed out.

"I did not 'lose' them," Michael insisted. "They just didn't fit in with our little family."

Pam couldn't really claim this was untrue, although she did wonder if there was anyone this wasn't true for.

"Butters will fit," Michael reflected confidently.

As much as Pam was used to her boss saying things that just didn't make sense, sometimes she'd still make a rookie mistake. "Who is Butters?"

Michael snorted with contempt. "Oh, Pam!"

---

Michael: There's always some people who just can't keep up with what's new and hip... and in this office, that's Pam.

---

Michael sidled his way between Jim and Ryan, sitting so that each man had one of his buttocks resting on their desks. "You know what we need in this office?"

Neither man could even hazard to guess what Michael might think they would need and neither wanted to know.

"What do why need, Michael?" Dwight asked with canine obedience.

Michael was a little frustrated that Dwight had been the one to ask, but didn't let that hold him back. "Some new blood."

"Well, we just had all those people from Stamford," Ryan pointed out, restraining himself from mentioning the way Michael gradually forced everyone but Karen out.

"They weren't team players," Michael defended, "couldn't work with anyone else."

"They worked well enough with everyone in Stamford," Jim reminded him.

"Well, don't forget that Stamford closed for a reason," Dwight snarled.

"Don't try to pretend that you understand how group dynamics work, Dwight," Michael muttered in stark contempt.

---

Dwight: I completely understand group dynamics, I was in a rap band in high school. _He smiles. _ We called ourselves "Rhyme-Masters of Teräs Käsi." And we ruled the food court.

---

"The point is that we need to see a few nice faces around the office." He looked back and forth smugly between Jim and Ryan. "You two should agree with that... between the two of you've already slept with every woman in the office," he laughed.

The fact that between Ryan, Jim, _and_ Dwight they'd only slept with four of the women of the office and only two that they could admit to did not seem like the kind of argument that would either work or was any of Michael Scott's business, so Jim decided to employ the one name that would crush any of Michael's dreams like a spell. "Michael, you know this sort of thing is up to HR."

Michael fumed and burbled as he got the implication. "Toby."

Jim found himself wrestling with the nigh-impossible task of trying to look sympathetic while fighting off a smile. "It's his call."

Jim expected Michael to give up the ghost at the very mention of Toby, but Michael clearly felt more strongly about this than Jim had assumed. Michael lumbered off Frankenstein-like, towards the dreaded annex, mumbling to himself "I **will **have my Butters."

---

Jim: I've heard him say crazier things, but...

---

"Michael, you know corporate is watching you right now," Toby said in his usual tone of laconic reasonability, "they're still going through the complaints from the people who left and there's been a moratorium on you hiring new people."

"But this is important! Can't you see that?" Michael replied, flying off the handle as usual.

"I know that it's hard maintaining Stamford's workload without the benefit of Stamford's people, but..."

"This is more important than **that**! I need my Butters!" Michael insisted.

Toby took a moment to drink in the insanity before inquiring "Do you mean from 'South Park' or 'Veronica Mars?'"

Michael blinked at him several times in rapid succession. "Who the hell is 'Veronica Mars?'"

"Well..."

Michael brushed Toby aside before he could finish what he was saying. It was a disturbing familiar feeling for Toby. "Toby, could you just back me for once?"

Toby tried one last time to appeal to Michael's sense of reason. "If I let you hire someone else against the ban from corporate, they could fire everyone in this office."

Needless to say, Michael didn't get it. "So... "

Toby merely shook his head.

"Well, that's just great," Michael fumed as stormed back out of the annex.

---

Michael: Toby has always been petty and small and working against what's right for this company... but this time...

---

Michael moved to the front of the room and called his staff to attention. "Everyone, I have an announcement to make. As you all know, this office is one of the classic comedy teams, like Amos and Andy or Cheech and Jung... for too long, though, we've been missing a vital member of our team. Now **Toby **says I can't hire anyone new to fill that space, but you know what I say? I say, we can't take no for an answer, I say we show corporate they can't deny us the Butters we so richly deserve..." at this point, many in the room began to ask each other who Butters was, only to accept that it really didn't matter. "That's why none of us are leaving this office until Toby agrees to reverse his racist hiring policies."

There was a loud groan throughout the office.

"Can't the people with children go home?" Stanley pleaded.

Michael stood firm. "This is a protest, Stanley. Like you used have when you were in the Black Panthers."

"I was never in the Black Panthers," Stanley bit back.

"Of course you weren't," Michael winked. "But we are here to cause social change, and we're not leaving until we have changed the way the world works."

"I just don't think having a Butters is worth getting fired over," Toby argued weakly.

"Quiet, fascist," Michael hissed.

---

Michael: Society is all about progress: moving forward, embracing the new... but there will always be people who are just roadblocks and... if we're going to get anywhere as a society, we have to be willing to roll over those people. That's what workers have been striking and protesting for since the Sixties.

---

Michael's strike lasted well into the night, with every one of his employees getting understandably restless. Michael had tried to keep the troops entertained by singing some traditional protest songs, but then had to admit he didn't know any except "We Got A Great Big Convoy." Phyllis had pointed out that Creed might be better suited for the job, but he had disappeared into the men's bathroom some hours earlier, mentioning that the protest atmosphere made him feel like "reliving some old memories." Toby, in a desperate dive to save himself and his coworkers, had spent the last few hours on the phone with Jan, trying to get her to give into the demands of the madman that was holding them all hostage. But, in the end he had to admit she was right: there just wasn't space in the budget for a Butters.

Time had lost all meaning for Pam. Michael had insisted that all computers be turned off (calling them "agents of oppression" or "tools of the man" or somesuch) and her watch (a gift from Roy) had been broken when she got it, but it felt like about 3 a.m. when Jim finally got up from his chair with a look of determination.

She mouthed something to him from across the room.

He nodded.

---

Jim: Pam and I used to this word have for the feeling you'd get when you'd been up for a while... It's kind of sleepy and a little bit sexy... It's complicated. But **that **is when the best, craziest ideas come to you.

---

"You know what, Michael? We're **all** Butters," Jim said, swiping his arms across the room.

Michael's eyes went wide, which Jim took as a good sign.

"Kevin's Butters with the way he just accepts whatever happens to him with a positive attitude," Jim explained.

"Wait... what?" Kevin asked.

"Angela is Butters with the solid, traditional values she brings into the workplace," Jim continued.

Angela raised a resentful eyebrow as she tried to decide whether or not this qualified as an insult or not.

"And Dwight..." Jim laughed. "There's plenty of Butters in Dwight."

Michael seemed overjoyed. "Am I Butters?" he asked hopefully.

"Absolutely you are," Jim agreed.

---

Michael: You know, it really is funny how often we can spend our whole life looking for something only to realize its right in front of your face. I wanted a Butters. When all the while I had a room full of them.

---

With Michael's strange lust finally sated, everyone was free to go and Jim was quietly being hailed as a hero. On the elevator on the way out, Pam caught up with him.

"You really know a lot about Butters, don't you?" she asked.

Jim took a step back. "Are you kidding? I think I've seen that show twice."

"Then how..."

"You'd be surprised what you can fake, Beesly," he said, then the elevator door opened and he was gone.

**END**


End file.
